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UNITED KINGDOM: Game playing robot could help stroke victims

20 February 2009

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BERTI the robot is the latest in British robotic design and he's been pitting his wits against all comers in games of 'rock, paper, scissors' at the Science Museum in London to show off his manual dexterity.

BERTI has been designed to make human scale gesturing, meaning he shrugs his shoulders, waves his arms and opens and closes his fingers just like a human does when speaking.

"He is built to have joint dexterity and proportions as close as possible to a human. All the way from his gross joints, like his shoulder and his elbow, all the way to the joints in his hand so that he can move around and do gestures appropriate to speech," said PHD student Paul Bremmer, from Bristol Robotic Laboratory (BRL) who programmed the robot.

The design is the result of collaboration between BRL and Elumotion, which built BERTI. He gets his name from 'Bristol Elumotion Robotic Torso I'.

Many robots can move and talk, but it is much harder to get them to move in the same way a human skeleton does. While programmers can't give BERTI muscles, they have given him mechanised joints to move in an identical fashion and speed as a human does. BERTI's torso has 36 degrees of motion, such as an elbow joint. There are nine in each hand alone, meaning the mechanics are hugely complicated.

As a bit of fun, BERTI's designers made a glove with sensors on for humans to wear when challenging the robot to a round of the child's game 'rock, paper, scissors'. The robot waves his arm three times and makes either a fist (rock), flat palm (paper) or sticks two fingers out (scissors) and can sense via the special glove what his opponent has done, so he can declare "I win", "You win" or "It's a draw".

While humans like to think there is a certain strategy to the game, with BERTI it is purely random, which could actually be to his benefit.

"Berti's advantage I guess is that he doesn't try and pre-guess what we are going to do, he doesn't get bogged down with psychology. He has a one track mind that he will win," said Co-Director of Elumotion, Craig Fletcher, who built BERTI.

After losing several rounds to his creation, a frustrated Fletcher joked: "I sometimes think he cheats a little bit though, because you have got to understand that this glove has to go through him for him to understand what is working, so maybe there is a little bit of Berti coercion going on."

"You possibly can outwit the robot to some degree if you know something about computer random number generators, which are very unlikely to generate the same thing more than once, so it is not going to do the same thing twice in a row. So, you can probably, if you actually think about it quite hard guess roughly what the robot is going to do because it has only got a choice of two really after having done the previous one. So you probably can outwit the robot if you try," said Bremmer.

For all the fun people have playing games with BERTI, he could also one day have serious applications. Elumotion hopes the technology will be used in developing prosthetic limbs or to help people whose limbs have lost motion.

"If you get to somebody who has had a stroke fast enough, then if you add manipulation back to their arms they can regain some of the movement that they have lost. Maybe you could use him as a very accurate means of manipulating somebody into position," he said.

BERTI's technology could also be harnessed as a kind of brace for people with tremors, such as Parkinson's sufferers who need help with everyday tasks, like dressing themselves or eating with a knife and fork.

BERTI the robot is the latest in British robotic design and he's been pitting his wits against all comers in games of 'rock, paper, scissors' at the Science Museum in London to show off his manual dexterity.

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(Copyright: REUTERS)

LONDON, ENGLAND, UK (FEBRUARY 19, 2009) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF BERTI ROBOT ON DISPLAY MOVING ARMS AND HANDS SAYING:"My name is Berti. I was made by Elumotion and I live at Bristol Robotics Lab. The wo...

LONDON, ENGLAND, UK (FEBRUARY 19, 2009) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF BERTI ROBOT ON DISPLAY MOVING ARMS AND HANDS SAYING:"My name is Berti. I was made by Elumotion and I live at Bristol Robotics Lab. The work I am being used for is to study gestures that go with what I am saying. If you watch people when they speak you can see they use gestures like I do. They aim for the robot to communicate with a person in a human like way so they can understand each other and co-operate."PAUL BREMMER, BRISTOL ROBOTICS UNIVERSITY, PHD STUDENT WHO PROGRAMMED BERTI, WATCHING ROBOT AS IT SAYS "BYE" AND WAVES HAND

(SOUNDBITE) (English) PAUL BREMMER, BRISTOL ROBOTICS UNIVERSITY, PHD STUDENT WHO PROGRAMMED BERTI, SAYING:"Berti is a full-scale humanoid robot. He is built to have joint dexterity and proportions as close as possible to a human. All the way from his gross joints, like his shoulder and his elbow, all the way to the joints in his hand so that he can move around and do gestures appropriate to speech."BREMMER PLAYING ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS GAME WITH BERTI - FIRST GO BERTI SAYS "YOU WIN", SECOND ATTEMPT BERTI SAYS "IT'S A DRAW"CLOSE UP OF BREMMER'S HAND WEARING GLOVE WITH SENSORS ON AND BERTI'S HAND PLAYING ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS / BERTI SAYS "IT'S A DRAW"CRAIG FLETCHER, CO-DIRECTOR ELUMOTION, WHO BUILT BERTI ROBOT, PLAYING ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS WITH BERTI / BERTI SAYS "IT'S A DRAW" CLOSE UP OF FLETCHER'S HAND AND BERTI'S HAND / BERTI SAYS "I WIN"FLETCHER SHAKING HIS HEAD AS BERTI SAYS "I WIN" CLOSE UP OF FLETCHER'S HAND MAKING ROCK AND SCISSORS SHAPES WITH HIS HAND, WEARING SENSOR GLOVE

(SOUNDBITE) (English) CRAIG FLETCHER, CO-DIRECTOR ELUMOTION, WHO BUILT BERTI ROBOT, SAYING:"It's random and anybody that you play against it becomes a very psychological game and this point in time, Berti's advantage I guess is that he doesn't try and pre-guess what we are going to do, he doesn't get bogged down with psychology. He has a one track mind that he will win. But I sometimes think he cheats a little bit though, because you have got to understand that this glove has to go through him for him to understand what is working, so maybe there is a little bit of Berti coercion going on."WOMAN PLAYING ROCK, PAPER SCISSORS WITH BERTI / BERTI SAYS "YOU WIN" / SECOND ROUND BERTI SAYS "I WIN"CLOSE UP OF BERTI'S ARM, SHOWING COMPLEX MECHANICS AND CABLES WOMAN PLAYING ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS / BERTI SAYS "IT'S A DRAW"CLOSE UP OF BERTI'S AND WOMAN'S HANDS

(SOUNDBITE) (English) PAUL BREMMER, BRISTOL ROBOTICS UNIVERSITY, PHD STUDENT WHO PROGRAMMED BERTI, SAYING:"You possibly can outwit the robot to some degree if you know something about computer random number generators, which are very unlikely to generate the same thing more than once, so it is not going to do the same thing twice in a row. So, you can probably, if you actually think about it quite hard guess roughly what the robot is going to do because it has only got a choice of two really after having done the previous one. So you probably can outwit the robot if you try."FLETCHER WEARING SENSOR GLOVE, WIGGLING HIS FINGERS AROUND SLOWLY, BERTI'S HAND MIMICKING THE MOVEMENTS FLETCHER LOOKING AT BERTI'S HAND / PAN TO BERTI'S HEAD CLOSE UP FLETCHER MOVING HIS HAND AND BERTI COPYING MOVEMENTS

(SOUNDBITE) (English) CRAIG FLETCHER, CO-DIRECTOR ELUMOTION, WHO BUILT BERTI ROBOT, SAYING:"If you get somebody who has had a stroke fast enough then if you add manipulation back to their arms, then they can regain some of the movement that they have lost. Now with something like this, maybe you could use him as a very accurate means of manipulating somebody into position. So medically he has got a use there."WIDE OF BERTI ON TABLE MOVING HIS ARMS AND HANDS AROUND CLOSE UP OF MECHANICS IN BERTI'S ARM / PAN UP TO SHOULDER MECHANICS / PAN DOWN TO CLOSE UP BERTI'S HANDS MOVING